How Hume and Kant Reconstruct Natural Law: Justifying Strict Objectivity without Debating Moral Realism 1st Edition Kenneth R. Westphal

Primary Sources and Citation Methods

1. Reconstructing Moral Constructivism

1 Introduction

2 Conspectus

3 Chapter Overview

2. Objectivity, the Euthyphro Question, and Reconstructing Natural Law

4 Moral Objectivity, Social Contract Theory, and Natural Law

5 The Euthyphro Question and Moral Optionality

6 Artifice and Arbitrariness

7 Hume’s Key Insight

8 Hobbes’ Formulation of Two Basic Moral Problems

9 Modern Natural Law and the Social Contract

3. Hume’s Construction of Justice

10 Introduction

11 Founding Justice in Practice

4. Hume’s Proof of the Insufficiency of Moral Sentiments

12 Hume’s Account of the Basis of Specifically Moral Obligation

13 Hume’s Theory of Justice versus Hume’s Ethical Sentiments

14 A Causal Theory in Moral Epistemology?

15 Radical Nominalism, the Vagaries of Usage, and Optionality

16 Hume’s Impartial Spectator to the Rescue?

17 Justification and Motivation

5. Kant’s Principles of Moral Constructivism

18 Introduction

19 Kant’s Critique of Moral Empiricism

20 The Objects of Pure Practical Reason

21 The Structure of Kant’s Practical Philosophy

22 Kant’s Universalization Test

23 Conclusion

6. Natural Law Constructivism and Rational Justification

24 Introduction

25 The Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion

26 Kant’s Constructivism

27 Rational Judgment, Autonomy, and Spontaneity

28 Reason, Justification, and History

7. Constructivism, Contractarianism, and Basic Obligations

29 Introduction

30 Are all Fundamental Social Practices and Institutions Optional?

31 Contractarianism and the Problem of Relevant Descriptions

32 Kant’s Non-Contractarian Constructivism

33 Directions of Justification

34 Possible Universalisability versus Moral Voluntarism

8. Kant’s Justification of Rights to Usufruct

35 Introduction

36 Rights to Usufruct, not Property

37 Kant’s Argument to Justify Rights to Usufruct

38 Reconstructing Kant’s Justification of Rights to Usufruct

9. Conclusion: Reintegrating Justice into Morals

39 The Aims and Scope of this Study

40 What Today is Self-Evident?

41 Does Ethical Theory Rest on a Mistake?

42 Republicanism and Independence

43 Justice, Economics, and Accountancy

44 Hobbes in Leviathan does not Espouse Egoism

45 Natural Law, Self-Evidence, and Locke’s Laws of Nature

46 The 2008 Financial Crisis: Negligence In/Action